Tracing Historic Eucharistic Theology
Centuries of reflection, conflict, and ultimately division have been propelled by two rather innocuous Latin words: filioque and est. The former resulted in the split of the eastern and western churches, while the latter continues to sprout disagreement and division to this day. With respect to the latter, the view of Ambrose and other earlier Fathers is that when Christ said the (presumably) Aramaic equivalent of hoc est enim corpus meum, he meant what he said: in some way his body and blood are really present when we eat the Supper. How that is, Ambrose maintained, is a mystery (sacramentum). Like an axe head floating or five thousand people being fed by five loaves and two fish, this mysterious presence is contra natura, the manner in which God is wont to work.
Augustine followed Ambrose in much of his understanding of the sacrament, particularly its efficacy and mystery, but developed some important language to talk about how the sacrament works (importantly, not how the bread and wine become Jesus’ body and blood, but how the sacrament functions qua sacrament). Augustine distinguished between the signum (sign/symbol) and the res (thing); the signum points to the res and is the visible (sensible) expression of an invisible (spiritual) reality. Ultimately for Augustine, the point of the Eucharist is the unity of the church: when the whole church partakes of the sacrament, she demonstrates conformity to the Lord’s prayer that “they may be one, as we are one.”
Roughly 400 years later, Paschasius Radbertus reiterated both Ambrose’s emphasis on the mystical presence and efficacy of the sacrament, as well as Augustine’s emphasis that the sacrament exists for the unity of the church. Indeed, he both quoted and imitated Augustine so much that many later medieval theologians mistook his work for the Latin Doctor’s. Like his ancient North African mentor, he introduced some important developments into Eucharistic theology: he spoke of three corpora of Jesus, or rather, of Jesus’ body in three senses: the historical/human body of Jesus, the ecclesial body, and the mystical/Eucharistic body.[1] The first is unaffected by Eucharistic celebrations, because our Lord is at the right hand of the Father, and, as Augustine well noted, we cannot consume Christ in bite-sized pieces. The second, the ecclesial body, is what Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 — the body united in participation in Christ, through the sacrament (as Augustine articulated, cf. 1 Cor 11). Finally, the mystical/Eucharistic body is what is consumed in the sacrament and should not be confused with any of the other bodies, though it can still be spoken of rightly as the “body of Christ.” Paschasius argued that we, by participation in the ecclesial and mystical body, are raised into the presence of the historical body of Jesus. In this way Paschasius was able to communicate a Eucharistic theology which has the resources to speak of Christ’s “real presence” while not descending into either sacrilegious literalism or (as became the habit later) metaphysical speculation. Ratramnus of Corbie, for whom Paschasius was an abbot, summarized much of his master’s work and focused on the distinction between the figure (the Eucharist) and the truth (Jesus’ human body) — the figure is what presents itself to our senses, but the truth corresponds to Augustine’s res; the thing to which the figure points. Ratramnus clarified that some might think of the sacrament in a “fleshly sense” as opposed to a “spiritual sense”; the former is unworthy of believers, because it crudely assumes to be consuming the human body of Jesus (Paschasius’ “historical body”), and the latter is what is meant by receiving the sacrament in faith. In faith believers partake of the figure and in doing so spiritually consume the truth.
In the 12th century, Bonaventure further developed what Paschasius and Ratramnus had formulated, and referred to a threefold scheme: sacramentum tantum, res et sacramentum, and res tantum. The sacramentum tantum is the “sacrament only”, namely, the bread and wine. The res tantum is, as Augustine suggested, the unity of the church as the body of Christ. Together (res et sacramentum), the Eucharist is truly and really the body of Christ, broken for us. In this way, Bonaventure presented a clear synthesis of what came before, and laid the groundwork for Protestant era reflections.
Briefly, a word on transubstantiation is warranted, since Bonaventure and his contemporaries (particularly Thomas Aquinas) made use of this doctrine. The word transsubstantiato is used in Lateran IV but means no more than the literal translation “changed in substance”; the technical terms “substance” and “accident” were not conceptually available until the time of Bonaventure and Thomas, when Aristotelian metaphysics had made its way to Europe via Arabic scholars. The doctrine arose in part out of a pastoral desire to explain the way in which believers partake in the body and blood of Christ, but ultimately seems to create a problem in order to solve it. According to Aristotle, the substance of a thing ordinarily cannot be separated from its accidents, but this is exactly what the doctrine of transubstantiation postulates (and Thomas argues, similar to Ambrose, that this is contra natura — a miracle[2]). Rather than argue, with Ratramnus, that the figure (or species) taken in faith allows for nourishment by the truth (the substance), transubstantiation argues that by divine agency the substance of bread and wine are miraculously changed to the substance of Jesus’ body and blood. Ambrose’s warning against probing into the mystery of the sacramental presence went unheeded.
As the Protestant reformers began to consider the same issues with respect to the Eucharist, Calvin innovated by expressing what is in truth the catholic position: the sursum corda points to a reality in which participation in the ecclesial and Eucharistic body of Christ brings us into the spiritual presence of the historical body of Christ. In other words, Calvin articulated what Paschasius before him (and Augustine before him) argued for — Eucharistic ascent.
In keeping with what I have demonstrated here, I believe that in the Eucharist the bread and wine truly are Jesus’ body and blood. They are so, not through a (meta-)physical change, but by and with the Spirit. When we eat and drink the bread and wine in true faith, we are spiritually nourished; thus, the outward signs are fitting of the inward reality. Just as bread and wine nourish and gladden the heart physically, so the body and blood of Christ nourish us spiritually. By partaking in this meal in the context of our brothers and sisters in the Lord, we are participants in the threefold body of Christ: his ecclesial and Eucharistic body, and spiritually (actually!) his historical body. We trust that our visible participation in the first two is representative of our union with the third.
This entails an expression of catholicity: wherever fellow members of the body of Christ partake in the Supper, they are united with all other members through time and space, and with Christ himself as he reigns forever with the Father and the Spirit. The table therefore belongs to the Lord and not to any one local body. Though there may be disagreement with respect to the exact nature of the elements, what can be agreed upon is what is essential: the Word of God makes the sacrament efficacious, the incarnate Word is really present in the sacrament, and by the Spirit we are nourished in our spirits and strengthened to love and serve the Lord with the unity of the mind of Christ. The unity of the body is, as Augustine argued, the res of the sacrament. As believers, we pray wholeheartedly that such unity might be manifested more clearly and wonderfully in our celebrations of the Eucharist.
[1] Pope Innocent III later made a slight modification to Paschasius’ terminology by referring to three modes of Christ’s presence: ascended body, ecclesial body, sacramental body.
[2] It seems that by this move, Aquinas moved the goalposts back a few yards in order to give the same answer as Ambrose to a different question.
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